I have posted in the past about DRIVE GUM (www.drivegum.com). This gum contains caffein + guaraná.

Now the same company offers “NATUR GUM” , which instead of focusing on the energy, it goes in the direction of the natural ingredients. It claims to use 100% natural ingredients, which includes natural gum base from Central America, the flavours, the sweeteners (Xylitol and/or Stevia). Even the packaging!

There are 3 types of gum in the range, which include functional ingredients like vitamin D and fluoride, while the compnay is working on other SKU, like “Multivitamin”, “Hunger inhibitor” and “Hemp”.

Witht his additions to the previous Energy Gum, the portfolio covers a good variety of functional applications.

The owner of the company, Mr Nazareno Mario Ciccarello, has been clever enough to register the domain www.functionalgums.com

Another interesting company that exhibits in ISM for the second time is the Turkish “CEREMONY”.

They present sugarfree chewing gums with a very stylish and modern desing. Their main brand is “ 7 STICK” and also “CHIVITO”.

This new gum uses no aspartame, so it follows the trend of “clean label”, trying to avoid ingredients than may have a bad image in the general public. Maybe one day I should write a post about aspartame collecting all the data (positive and negative) that has been published about this intensive sweetener… and then another one about Stevia, which is quite an interesting case!

Today I will leave the presentation of chewing gum producers in ISM and talk a bit about a supplier. There were a few suppliers presenting there, so I will discuss about their ingredients as well.

Today is time for BENEO. The group has many branches and deals with sugar beet, rice and wheat products. It is itself a branch of the big german Südzucker group and probably the part of Beneo which comes closer to the chewing gum field is Beneo-Palatinit (Others are Beneo-Orafti, Beneo-Remy, Beneo-BioBasedChemicals and Beneo-Animal Nutrition). The company has an excellent application laboratory where they can prepare and analyize samples of many confectionery products.

This company produces two main groups of products: Isomalt and Palatinose.

Isomalt includes a family of different grades. It can used as bulk swetener (Isomalt ST) in sugarfree gum, but mainly as coating agent (Isomalt GS) for the chewing gum pillows. It has other applications such as tabletting (Isomalt DC) and chocolate production (Isomalt LM).

Recent studies conducted by the company show, for instance, that isomalt can replace the Mannitol in the chewing gum formulation. Many producers use 5% of Mannitol in the formulation. The main objective of this, is to act as anticrystallizing agent for the main bulk sweetener (usually sorbitol).

Palatinose is a trade name for the ingredient Palatinose, a sugar substitute which is “the only low glycemic carbohydrate providing longer lasting energy in the form of glucose” and it has also its application as sweetener in chewing gum.

In ISM the company presented a chewing gum which includes Palatinose and Stevia as sweeteners and a candy with Isomalt and Stevia. This follows the trend noticed in the market of increased use of Stevia as intensive sweetener. I mentioned about this in previous postings.

Let me reproduce here a text supplied by the company itself discussing about one of my passions: “Innovative applications”. In this case about tabletted gum, which is interesting in itself:

“One of the most interesting uses of the multi-layer compressed gum technology is Procter and Gamble’s Wick Blau Icebergs Sugar Free Chewing Gum. Launched late in 2008 in Germany, the chewing gum features a white layer of peppermint, with a special chewing gum layer. Containing ISOMALT, this sugar free mint product has been designed to have two effects; to provide an immediate refreshing feeling, as well as prolonging the product’s overall taste with the chewing gum. A more recent product brought to market featuring a similar two-layered mint/gum approach is Vivident’s Cool Shock Two-Layer Chewing Gum. This strawberry flavoured gum contains no added sugar, thanks to the inclusion of ISOMALT, and has been reformulated into trianglular-shaped tablets for marketing impact.”

This is a Danish-German-Tunisian company specialized in private label. It was founded in 2001 by Mr Kolind and Mr Barenholdt and they offer chewing gum, hard and soft candy, jellies and mints (compresssed tablets). Triki is one of the partners and, as such, some of the production of the company B11B is carried out in Tunisia. However they have also agreements with other producers. This flexibility allows them to offer several types, formats and presentations (sticks, dragees, filled dragees, in flip top box, in multipack, in plastic bottle, etc. ).

B11B is open to receive requests for any private label around the world, and they have as well their own brands, such as OXYDENT. In ISM they launched a gum with Stevia, one of the trends in the industry during last months and that has been discussed in this web in the past. So here we have the possibility to find more and more in the shops some chewing gum sweetened with Stevia!

Almost everything, but not all is chewing gum in this world… there is also chocolate! So this week I attended Chocotec, a symposium organized by ZDS in Cologne.

Of course both worlds have some common features and I’d like to mention now about the new trend: Stevia, or better I should say “Streviol Glycosides”. This family of intense sweeteners includes Rebaudioside A, B, C, D, E and F, and also Stevioside, Steviolbioside, Rubusoside and Dulcoside A. This group of molecules have been approved by EU with the number E960 as long as they contain at least 95% of Steviol glycosides and a minimum of 75% of Stevioside and/or Rebaudioside A.

The origin of all those ingredients is the plant “Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni” which was first cultivated in Paraguay. Nowadays the main source of this plant is China.

Important, the maximum level allowed in chewing gum is 3300 mg/kg of Steviolequivalents or 5500 mg/kg as Stevioglycosides. And it cannot be combined with sugar! EU Commission Directive 1131/2011

Also important that it cannot be labelled with sentences as “Natural Sweeetener Stevia” or “Stevia-extract”.

I heard rumours that most probably we will see chewing gums with this sweetener being launched in the market by next year 2013…

Just back from Lindau – Germany, where I attended this year’s edition of Sweet Tec, organized by ZDS. Interesting presentations about coating and all what is around it (ingredients, technology, …) Not necessarily about chewing gum, but also. For me it was special because, after many years (since 1998 if i remember well) giving lectures in ZDS, this is the fist time that I talk about something which is not chewing gum. This time was about chewy candy technology, which of course has some points in common with chewing gum but it has also its specificities.
Besides the usual companies attending these seminars (Capol, Danisco -now DuPont-, Chocotech, Beneo-Palatinit, Roquette, AZO, Munters…) I found specially important to note the presence (with booth) of two companies offering Stevia. One of them is Cargill, the other is NP Sweet A/S. While the first is well-known, I was not aware of the second, which is a joint-venture between Nordzucker and PureCircle. This follows, and reinforces the trend of this new ingredient, at least in Europe (I posted something about it already in this blog). However, no chewing gum has been launched in the market yet. I could chew samples (lab scale) and they were very nice, so I’m sure we will see some chewing gum with Stevia in the near future.